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Texas Tech football: Best debut seasons by a Red Raider head coach

By Matthew Conner

SAN DIEGO, CA - DECEMBER 30: Head Coach Kliff Kingsbury of the Texas Tech Red Raiders gets the Gatorade dump after his teams' 37-23 win over the Arizona State Sun Devils during their National University Holiday Bowl Game on December 30, 2013 at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, California. (Photo by Donald Miralle/Getty Images)
SAN DIEGO, CA - DECEMBER 30: Head Coach Kliff Kingsbury of the Texas Tech Red Raiders gets the Gatorade dump after his teams' 37-23 win over the Arizona State Sun Devils during their National University Holiday Bowl Game on December 30, 2013 at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, California. (Photo by Donald Miralle/Getty Images) /
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Jim Carlen 1970: 8-4

In the last 50 years, no Red Raider head coach has won more than eight games in his first season.  One of the three men to reach that win total was Jim Carlen who led the 1970 team to an 8-4 mark and an appearance in the Sun Bowl.

Coming over from West Virginia where he was head coach from 1966-69, Carlen amassed a 37-20-2 record from 1970-74 earning Southwest Conference Coach of the Year honors in 1970 and 1973.  He left Lubbock after the 1974 season to take over at South Carolina where he is still the third-winningest head coach in Gamecocks’ history.

His 1970 Red Raider team spent three weeks in the top-25 reaching as high as No. 17.  That season, Tech managed wins over Tulane, Kansas, UC Santa Barbara, Texas A&M, SMU, Rice, TCU and Baylor.

But it was the losses that may have been even more telling for Carlen’s squad.  Three of the four defeats the1970 team suffered came against ranked opponents, preventing Tech from taking the next step an becoming a true factor in the SWC that season.

After a 2-0 start, the Red Raiders fell 35-13 to No. 2 Texas in Lubbock in week-three.  Three games later, Carlen saw his team drop a close game at Mississippi State 20-16.

Tech ended the regular season with a 24-10 home loss to No. 6 Arkansas before falling to No. 13 Georgia Tech in the Sun Bowl 17-9.  Like so many Texas Tech football teams over the years, Carlen’s first team was good enough to compete with the top teams in the nation but could not quite find a way to get over the hump.

Still, a 5-3 record in Southwest Conference play was nothing to dismiss for Texas Tech at that time.  It was only the third five-win conference mark in the program’s eleven seasons in the SWC.

Taking it a step further, Tech has not won five conference games since 2009, the final year of the Mike Leach era.  Though Matt wells will have five of his nine Big 12 games on the road this year, if he can equal Carlen’s conference win-total in his debut season, he will be off to a fantastic start as Texas Tech head coach.

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